Rainy season blossoms

(Baonghean) - As the autumn sun gradually gives way to persistent floods and increasingly frequent storms, it's time for the rainy season to begin in my hometown. It's a season of worries that turn my parents' hair white, when the fields and rice paddies are submerged in water. But the season also brings bountiful harvests to the farmers in my village. These bountiful harvests have helped my family and neighbors overcome times of hardship. Even if it's just fish, eels, or crickets... when the rainy season arrives, they become precious gifts, often providing a source of livelihood for many.

In my memory, I'm forever haunted by images of going with my father to catch crickets in the fields. After the storms passed, the rain still fell on our homeland, and the evening smoke carried with it the worry of not having anything to eat for dinner. While my mother lit the fire with waterlogged bamboo, my father and I went to the fields to catch crickets. My father went ahead, and I cautiously followed behind in the mingled rain and evening mist. The crickets, with no shelter left after their burrows were flooded, had to take temporary refuge in the high grassy banks or in the corners of bamboo groves, or in the rows of sweet potatoes higher than the floodwaters. They hadn't had time to dig new burrows, so I could easily reach out and catch plump crickets with legs still covered in mud and water. In less than an hour, I had a long string of crickets. For dinner, alongside a bowl of fish sauce, we had the fragrant stir-fried crickets. The night passed with the sound of rain falling on the thatched roof, but it was incredibly warm.

Field frog. Illustration: Internet

When the rainy season begins, if a family has a few fishing nets, dozens of traps or baskets, and a flashlight, then night fishing will be more enjoyable and provide more than just enough food for the day. Because after the scorching hot days, when the first rains fall, frogs and toads will jump from the bushes onto the mounds and fields that very night, singing their symphony of the rainy season. With a little quickness and sharp eyes, catching those frogs and toads will provide enough food for several days afterward. And during those first days of the rainy season, the fields and rice paddies in my hometown are almost always filled with the shimmering lights of flashlights throughout the night. Families go out together to hunt for the first bounty of the season, with great joy, especially the children who get to go along.

When the rain intensifies, fish from the river swim upstream into the rice paddies. This is because during this season, fish swim upstream to find places to spawn. Nets and traps are set by the villagers in the ditches and rice paddies, ensuring the fish will inevitably pass through. All they have to do is wait and remove the fish. The most enjoyable part is watching the fish being removed or even removing them themselves from the nets. Large carp and crucian carp, as big as a human hand, thrash about in the nets. And even snakehead and catfish, as big as a forearm, struggle to break free from the nets. In the past, almost every family in my village went fishing during the rainy season, primarily to earn a living, but also for the simple pleasures of rural life that have been passed down through generations.

Countless generations of farmers have been born and returned to their motherland in this village. The bounty of the fields has nurtured them, and me too, during the difficult rainy season. I feel so much affection for those tiny crickets, frogs, and fish, yet they shoulder the mission of sustaining the farmers through storms and floods. And I feel so much affection for the lives of my grandparents and parents, clinging tightly to the village land, caught up in hunger and poverty. The rice, potato, and bean seasons... no matter how hard they worked, they barely had enough to eat, while the rainy and flood days were a struggle to make ends meet. Many times, during conversations on rainy October days, I heard my grandmother and parents speak of the farmers' gratitude to the bounty of the fields, to the animals that "nourished them" as a form of selfless devotion. That gratitude is truly fitting and precious.

Fish, crabs, and other "gifts from the fields" are becoming increasingly rare over time due to urbanization and increasingly harsh human exploitation. My family, like our neighbors, doesn't go hungry during the flood season. But my heart still aches when the water floods around our house, when the acrid evening smoke mixes with the rain pouring down on our country roofs. And, every now and then, I still go with my father and neighbors to the fields to catch fish and frogs when the first rains of the season fall. It's a habit, a cultural tradition preserved in the consciousness of a child raised amidst the rice paddies and straw of the countryside.

And, if my children are born in this land later, I will pass that habit on to them. More importantly, I will always teach them to be grateful for the blessings of the land, for the simple things that have helped our grandparents and ancestors overcome hardships for generations, and to firmly pass on their legacy to this day...

Nguyen Thanh Giang

(Group 6, Block 2, Truong Xuan Ward, Tam Ky City, Quang Nam Province)